


Veritaserum

by Thinksy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Swearing, Veritaserum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:53:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27506401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thinksy/pseuds/Thinksy
Summary: What if the golden trio wasn't the only group of Gryffindors who decided to interrogate the Slytherins in order to figure out who the Heir of Slytherin is? What if one day in study hall, a group of Gryffindor's release veritsarum to all those present in the Great Hall. And what if Snape has a bad reaction to it and starts spewing his thoughts unhindered.This never happened. But if it had, it might have gone something like this.
Comments: 23
Kudos: 101





	Veritaserum

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any of the characters. Thanks to JKR for letting me borrow them

**Veritaserum**

Severus rubbed his head. It was starting to ache and that was worrying. He was the only professor overseeing study hall currently as Septima Vector had taken three students to the hospital wing with headaches. That left him with over three hundred students in the Great Hall and less than zero patience to deal with them and his pounding head.

He continued to stalk around the room at a steady pace scowling at anyone who raised their voice. It paid to be the strictest professor at Hogwarts as the brats kept quiet when he demanded it. For the most part at least. His scowl lit upon the golden trio that lived to drive him up the wall. They were whispering nonsense and he was determined to put a stop to it. Severus strode towards the Potter brat intent on assigning detention when the Malfoy heir surprised him with his own strident voice.

“The Heir of Slytherin is on the move. Better watch out Mudblood - you will be next. Soon the school will fall and then muggles all know and fear the Heir.”

“100 points from Slytherin for being an idiot,” Severus bit out loudly.

He continued past Malfoy towards Potter only to be stopped by Terence Higgs. “Excuse me, Sir, did you say 100 points _from_ Slytherin?”

“Yes, you foolish boy. Do I need to repeat myself?” Severus snapped.

“No Sir. It’s just that sir, well….” Terence floundered. “Well Sir, I don’t think you have ever taken points from Slytherin before.”

“And why shouldn’t I take points from my own house?” He bit out. “You foolish lot deserve to be taken down a peg.”

Terence turned bright red. “Umh Yes Sir. Uh just to be clear when you said Malfoy was an idiot did you mean-”

“Let’s think about this then,” Severus sneered. The entire hall had stopped working on their homework and were staring at him. “It should be ten points for using such a derogatory slur. A hundred points for being stupid enough to imply that the _Heir of Slytherin_ was targeting muggleborns within the hearing of other houses as a _Slytherin himself_. And another hundred points for being stupid enough to think that the wizards would win in a fight against the muggles. Good job in making us consider the full idiocy of Mr. Malfoy - 210 points from Slytherin!”

“Uh Sir,” Potter spoke up. “Did you just say that the muggles would win against Voldemort?”

Severus rubbed his head. “Of course I did boy. Are you stupid? You were raised by muggles. You must know that muggles are far more powerful than wizards.”

“You think muggles are more powerful than wizards,” Granger said slowly. “Are you feeling alright Sir?”

“No. I am _clearly_ not feeling alright Miss Granger. Good Lord, you need to start using your brain and stop relying on books to tell you the answer. It’s going to get you killed.”

“Uh back to the muggle thing Sir,” Terence interrupted. “Can you please explain why the muggles would win?”

“Fine,” Severus snarled. “Let’s find a muggleborn and see if they can explain it.” He looked around and pointed to Justin Finch-Fletchly at the Hufflepuff table. “You boy, your family is in the British Ministry are they not?

“Yes Sir.”

“Good, then can you explain to the purebloods why wizards would lose in a war?”

“Well Sir, I am not sure what you mean. Do you mean in a war for England? Or a war for the world?”

Severus rolled his eyes. “It amounts to the same thing. If the Death Eaters actually tried to take over England, America or the Russians would step in before they even had London.”

“True, but a lot of muggles would die first. The British don’t really hold with guns so wizards definitely win at first.”

“You are thinking small scale. Sure, we win a few skirmishes. Before the army shows up with guns, then more would die. But not as many as would die when the American’s nuked us all.”

“Begging your pardon Sir, but the Soviets would probably nuke us first.” Dean Thomas spoke up.

Severus rolled his eyes again and rubbed his head. “Mr. Thomas if you bothered to pay attention to the muggle news since you became a wizard you would know that the cold war ended late last year. They are Russians again, not Soviets. But yes, yes. They would have a bloody good time trying to decide who got us first. Either way, all of Britain would be dead wizard and muggle alike.”

“Muggles could wipe out Britain?” Malfoy gulped. “With guns? What are guns?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Snape growled. “Why would muggles use guns when they could drop a few nuclear bombs on us first? Though I suppose they would probably send in their armies with guns afterward to kill any survivors.”

“Can you explain this nuclear bomb thing?” Adrian Pucey spoke up.

“And this is why purebloods are all going to die,” Snape snapped. “Honestly, you are all so ignorant you make me want to vomit. You are all going to die within a generation or two due to your prejudiced ignorance. I don’t know why I even bother.”

“That’s a little pessimistic,” Finch-Fletchly said. “The American’s and the Russians haven’t actually started a nuclear war. Plus now that the Cold War is over we can all relax. And the Americans have refrained from dropping any of them on foreign soil since the end of the war so we are probably ok.”

“Yes, on _foreign soil._ But they have both been conducting plenty of tests on their own soil. Tell me Mr. Finch-Fletchly, what is the difference between muggle salt and wizarding salt?”

“Uh, the muggle salt comes in a blue cylinder?”

“Why do I even bother. _No. Muggle salt has iodine in it_. And why does muggle salt have iodine in it?”

Dean Thomas answered his question. “Oh, to absorb all the nuclear radiation in the air.”

“Excellent. Now, let’s say you are a pureblood who has never bothered to buy muggle salt or iodine tablets much less learn about nuclear radiation and how to combat it. Based on the current rate of nuclear testing and nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl six years ago, how long do you estimate until all the purebloods die of radiation poisoning?”

“My dad says that United Nations are working on nuclear restrictions to make nuclear sites safer,” Finch-Fletchly said. “I mean it’s probably not going to kill them not to have iodine. Especially if the resolutions go through. It’ll probably just make them sick.”

“Oh Goody, let’s put our hopes in the hands of yet another corrupt form of government. Oh, joy.”

Snape rubbed his head again and tried to think rationally about this conversation. He looked balefully around the room. “Alright, what blithering idiot released Veritaserum in the Great Hall?”

His eyes fell on a group of guilty looking sixth year Gryffindors and he went to loom over them. “What did you do?” He demanded silkily.

“Nothing bad Sir.”

“You better give me specifics before the effects get worse you nincompoops!”

“We turned it into an aerosol and sprayed it around the room,” one of them admitted guiltily.

“And what moronic reason could you have to do such a stupid thing?” Severus yelled. “You can’t turn veritaserum into a gas safely! You could kill us all with our experimenting!”

He quickly sent a Patronus to Poppy and letting her know what the Gryffindors had done and demanded that she contact St. Mungos as he was in no position to work an antidote. He turned back to the Gryffindors. “500 points from Gryffindor for attempting to poison the castle. 300 points for experimenting on a potion in a way clearly forbidden in all of your textbooks. If you can’t bother researching a potion before you attempt changing it then you don’t deserve to be trusted on your own. Detention for the rest of the year with Madam Pince in the library. Please tell me what the hell you were thinking to force feed an untested potion to a room full of your classmates!” Severus’ voice grew throughout his tirade.

“We wanted to know who was the Heir of Slytherin. We thought this would be a good way to find out.”

“The Heir of Slytherin! The Heir of Slytherin! You thought you could figure it out! You bloody imbecile, the Heir of Slytherin is Voldemort!”

“Voldemort! I thought he was dead!” A Ravenclaw cried out. “But how is he here?”

“The same way he was here last year when he possessed the back of your Defense Teacher’s head. He is a bloody gross mess. He is possessing one of you, you morons.”

“But who?”

“Let’s ask,” Snape drawled. “Anyone want to come forward and admit to being possessed by Voldemort?”

“Me Sir,” Ginny Weasley squeaked before breaking into sobs.

“Bloody Hell. What?”

“Meee Sir. I think,” she shuddered. “I think he has been controlling me through my diary but I can’t stop writing in it!”

“Accio Weasley’s diary.” The diary came flying to Severus and he caught it with his robes. He was careful not to touch it with his skin and flipped through it to see blank pages. Severus carefully set it on the head table before turning back to the Gryffindors. “If this turns out to be the cause of Voldemort’s possession, and no one dies today, I’ll give Gryffindor 100 points. But don’t think this in any way lessens how fucking stupid I think you all are.”

He sent a patronus to Dumbledore this time, letting the man know about the potion and the diary. Severus straightened and called loudly, “Does anyone know how Ginny Weasley got the diary?”

“I think my father gave it to her,” Malfoy said fearfully.

“Oh really,” Severus said as he stalked back to Malfoy’s side. “And what makes you think that?”

Malfoy cowered in his seat. “He said that the Heir would be opening the Chamber again this year. He told me over the summer and said that a mudblood had died last time. He said that it was going to happen again.”

“And you thought you would have fun with it didn’t you? Just as fucking stupid as your father. Running your mouth off and terrorizing your classmates. Think you are better than us.”

“No Sir! I wasn’t trying to terrorize Granger. I was trying to warn her, honest.”

“Such a waste. Just like your father - a fucking idiot.”

“Please Godfather,” Malfoy started to cry. “I was scared. Father said they were going to die and I didn’t want them to but I was scared of what he would say if he found out I warned them. I thought they would start figuring it out if I said some stuff.”

“Merlin Draco, if you follow your father you are going to end up in Azkaban or dead, You need to stop pussyfooting around and figure out how to stand on your own. ”

Draco cried harder. “I am sorry, I didn’t know what to do. I thought you knew and you agreed with my father! I thought you wanted Voldemort back too!”

“Never once thinking for yourself. Only an idiot would want Voldemort back. Do I look like an idiot?”

“Well Sir, if you look at it the right way, Draco was probably trying to warn us so maybe you shouldn’t be too hard on him,” Hermione tried to placate Snape. “He isn’t really a bad guy, just a spoiled snob.”

“Merlin you are all idiots.”

“Uh Sir,” Dean tentatively spoke up. “Did you mean earlier that you think the muggles are definitely going to try to kill us if they ever found out about magic?”

Severus rubbed his head again. It hurt so much, where was Dumbledore? They needed an adult here who hadn’t been poisoned. “Muggles aren’t going to try and kill wizards unless we try to turn into despotic overlords. They will probably hire you all to work in their movie studios or something equally inane. Probably see if any of you want to work on their science projects until they find out how utterly moronic you all are.”

“Hey - we aren’t all morons!”

“Really Mr. Thomas? When was the last time you kept up with your muggle studies? Your muggle peers are learning upper level algebra as we speak. Can you tell me what the quadratic equation is? No. Well something easy then, what is the slope of a line? No again. Fine - how about Latin. Did you even bother learning Latin since it is the foundational language of our spells? No. So disappointing. Can you write a five paragraph essay analyzing George Orwell’s 1984? No, how about an essay on imperial colonialism in Africa? No again. Last question, can you name five bones in the human body?”

Severus snorted. “I thought not. What do you know? You can transfigure a hedgehog into a fucking pincushion. Wow - an astounding bit of knowledge. The wizarding curriculum is appallingly lacking compared to the muggle one and it turns you all into idiots. The wizarding world is run by fucking idiots and I despise you all.”

“Well, what would you have us do then?” Justin said challengingly.

“You should drop out of Hogwarts and go to Eton and study magic on the weekends. Get a muggle born tutor and you can get a permit to practice magic at home. You will grow up to have a much better job and more respect in the muggle world and still know magic. It’s the best of both worlds.”

“Uh, I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Of course you didn’t. No one ever thinks to ask any fucking questions.”

“Uh Sir, what did you mean by more money?”

Severus rubbed his nose. Why had his students all become such chatterboxes? They never bothered to listen to a thing he said in class. “Simple Miss Abbott. Ninety percent of you that will go work out of Hogwarts will find a shit job in the Ministry or at a bleeding stupid shop. If you chose either government work or shop work in the muggle world you would get paid at least double what the wizarding world pays. Plus if you chose to live in a muggle house that has indoor plumbing, electricity to power the lights, and the kitchen appliances, well you would have more magic to use on fun things instead of keeping your fucking leftovers cold.”

Hermione waved her hand. “Wizards use magic to keep their refrigerators cold?”

“They don’t have refrigerators. They have barbaric iceboxes kept cold by magic and they still use wood stoves to cook their food and heat their water. It’s positively medieval.”

“Huh, but why? Electricity is so cheap!”

“Because it’s muggle and they are too stupid to understand it. Honestly girl - grow up and actually look at the wizarding world. Any muggle born with half a brain gets out if they can and escapes back to the easy life of muggledom. Sure magic is fun, but technology is easier.”

“Technology?”

“Yes fucking technology - it's what they call the things they built with science. Like cars and phones and computers and rockets to go to the moon and space stations.”

“Rockets to the moon? There is no way a muggle has been to the moon!”

“Mr. Higgs please lower your voice before I give you detention. I assure you the Americans sent six missions to the moon, for a total of 12 muggle men who have walked on the moon. The last two went twenty years ago, and since then muggles have been keeping their space journeys closer to earth since then.”

“Muggles can go to space! I want to go to space! How?”

Severus rolled his eyes. “Drop out of Hogwarts and go get a decent education. They don’t let lackwits go to space.”

Terrence turned to Dean. “Have you been to space? How do I go?”

“Erh no, it’s mostly Americans and Soviets, I mean Russians that go. The Russians have a space station I think. And they go up and do science experiments. Sometimes astronauts from other countries go, but it’s all scientists or military people I think.”

“Do they go with this nuclear bomb?”

“What! No, bombs kill people they are bad. No nuclear bombs in space - I think there is a treaty.”

Terrence shrugged, “Well you mentioned Americans and Russians for bombs and space I thought maybe they were related.”

“Well, I suppose they could make a nuclear engine, but nuclear stuff is really dangerous and things blow up in space a lot I think. So it would be really bad if a nuclear rocket exploded when they didn’t want it to.”

“I don’t understand,” Terrence frowned.

“Well like Professor Snape was saying, one of their nuclear bombs could wipe out London no problem. So if a nuclear rocket accidentally exploded on the way to space it would kill everyone under it and then poison a lot of people downwind. And then lots of people would get mad at them. The whole world was mad at the USSR when Chernobyl blew up including their own people. It only takes a few minutes to get to space anyways… like 15 or so? Shaving off a few minutes to get there faster probably doesn’t sound like a good risk of accidentally killing millions.” Justin explained.

“Millions? Just how many muggles do you think there are?”

“There are five and a half billion people in the world. Most of them are muggles.”

“But.. but you can’t just kill millions of people!”

“What? Are you admitting that Voldemort was fucking wrong Mr. Higgs? Admitting he was foolish to think that he could enslave over five billion people?” Severus hissed. “Perhaps there is hope for you yet.”

“No one can kill millions of people!”

Severus shrugged. “The muggles killed approximately 85 million people during WW2 in the forties. Wizards can’t kill millions of people, but you should never forget that they can kill the entire world if they ever get start a damn nuclear war.”

“Did he know? Did Voldemort know that Muggles could kill so many people?” Draco asked with trepidation.

“Of course he knew. He grew up in London during the fucking war. He saw the bombs. Why do you think he fears muggles so much. But he is just as foolish as all the purebloods he ensnared and refused to pay attention to how powerful muggles have become.”

“Uh Sir, how would you stop Voldemort if you had a choice?”

“Guns. I would buy lots of guns and the minute I saw someone in a robe and a fucking mask I’d start shooting. Don’t give them a chance to open their damn mouths. Course if Dumbledore would let me we could go shoot all the death eaters before Voldemort returns.” Severus sneered. “I know where they live. They could be dead within the day.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” the Weasley twins chirped. “Give us a map and some of these gun things and we can come help.”

“Hey - that’s my dad you are talking about,” Theo Nott glared.

“Yeah, and it sounds like Voldemort is going to get us all killed by the muggles if we don’t stop them. Better us than your dad.”

“No - we should find a way to kill Voldemort now before he has a chance to build up his following,” Malfoy said quietly. “The death eaters won’t do anything if we kill him first.”

“You want to kill Voldemort?” Harry asked.

“I don’t want to die,” Draco started crying again.

“Ok, geez Draco stop crying. We will make sure you don’t die.”

Harry stood up on the table and gestured wildly. “Alright listen up. Anyone who is sick and tired of Voldemort coming to Hogwarts every year and possessing people gather up on this side of the hall. We are going to find a way to kill him once and for all. Anyone who wants to stay out of it go to that side of the hall. Anyone moronic enough to want to follow Voldemort go to Professor Snape and he can obliviate you or something.”

About a third of the hall crossed the room to get away from Harry, but the rest stayed put or moved closer.

Harry turned and smiled. “Alright Professor Snape. What do you recommend we do first?”

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short one shot that was rattling around my brain while I was writing the Potion Master's Second Chance. Snape doesn't swear much in my other fic and I wrote him swearing once and it got me thinking. What kind of situation would cause Snape to start swearing and yelling? This popped into my head and I thought I would see how it came out


End file.
